How does it go.. nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
The crafty Defence Force has waited five days to respond and then turn around and say it was the wrong village. How’s their fact checking, seeing they lost the ‘report’?
Did they wait five days because Parliament was sitting last week and not sitting this week?
This story is not going away. If it is not dealt with in the form of a fully independent inquiry, it will leave a stain on the reputation of our military and NZ as a whole.
Right now the NZDF and Government are trying to back pedal to a point where they can save some face. To me it is too late for that. They had 7 years to front foot it properly.
I liked Marianne Elliott on Q+A in the weekend in answer to the accusation that Hit and Run was politically motivated… that what we are dealing with here is a political cover up.
I’m still furious about Key’s final speech. What a lot of ghost-written bollocks ! There are many current horror stories out there of working conditions and parents sacrificing themselves for their kids including tangata whenua, polynesian, hindu, chinese, philipino, tamil among others, reflecting increasing complexity in Aotearoa. Parliament needs to reflect *them*, not just the chattering classes.
He means the fact that there weren’t any insurgents in the village they attacked. Quite a failure of ‘fact checking’ that one.
Srylands is just reflexively supporting established power again. That’s what the authoritarian right does
“The Māori Party has spearheaded a new bill proposing major changes to the governance and administration of the 27,000 titles of Māori land in New Zealand, which equate to 6 percent of the country’s total land mass.
But its new ally, Mana Party leader Hone Harawira has called the Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill “a poisonous and destructive cancer”.”
I guess wisdom comes with age. I experienced [suffered] both sensible and stupid corporal punishment in my youth and it is obvious to me it is a serious lack in the dragging up of children today as evidenced by the events which caused Winston to speak out for the return of discipline.
But sadly the biggest problem is the pre-dominence of female teachers who are incapable and prefer to deprive children of education rather than a little bit of discipline to show the children what is right and what is wrong in a way to be remembered.
jcuknz….. pleeeze female teachers are to blame…. maybe the sensible and stupid corporal punishment in your youth did some serious damage to your future intellectual state….
And she’s right. There is no way to be (so-called) fiscally responsible and also be socially responsible. The thing that really gets me about so-called fiscal responsibility is that it’s highly irresponsible – people suffer and people die when ledgers are held up as more important than people.
I actually think that the ‘business plan’ Gareth Morgan has tabled through TOPs has more to offer struggling people and does more to address imbalances of wealth than anything this straight jacket Labour and the Greens want the country to don can ever achieve.
Anyway. It’s looking like mana for me. And if that turns out to be a wasted vote, then hey. (I simply won’t vote in favour of getting a kicking)
Where have Labour or the Greens said that the ledger is more important than people? Shaw was pretty clear that it was the other way round.
“There is no way to be (so-called) fiscally responsible and also be socially responsible.”
So people said the other day and when I asked for an explanation of that what I got was lines of ideology. The framing of one vs the other and never the twain shall meet looks like a political stance rather than an absolute truth.
There was an entire post done just the other day that laid out their ‘fiscally responsible’ position. Y’know? All that b/s around debt being held to 20% of GDP etc?
I’m at a loss to understand what it is you’re not grasping. There are only two ways governments raise monies to spend on social programmes.
One way is through taxation. The other is through borrowing.
Obviously, if debt is being paid down then there’s no borrowing or only very limited borrowing. Meanwhile, revenue from taxation that’s paying down debt isn’t going to social spending.
In a situation where an economy has slowed, that diversion of a lower tax take to pay down debt is disastrous – it’s a liberal economic prescription that both Labour and the Greens have pledged to adhere to and it’s otherwise known as austerity.
The non-liberal prescription (the responsible avenue) is to borrow and supplement any tax take and then allocate the monies for various social expenditures. And only pay down debt when the debt to GDP ratio has naturally fallen as the consequence of increased GDP.
In other words, what Labour and the Greens should be saying is that their government will invest in schools and health and whatever infrastructure and services are required for the general welfare of NZ, and that debt will be only be paid down if and when favourable economic conditions prevail.
Well thanks for finally putting out an alternative positioning. Doesn’t high debt place us at increasing risk internationally?
What you appear to be saying is that if we have unfavourable conditions that on the basis of this policy the Greens would throw social services under a bus. I just don’t see the evidence for that (and I’m pretty sure Matthew addressed this issue in the last round).
The Greens are in favour of increasing govt income via taxation btw.
On the second point, if monies are being used to pay down debt, then that can only come at the expense of social spending. Yes, given less money, health could be prioritised over roads. But regardless of what you may think of roads, the fact remains that less money is being spent into society in favour of giving that money over to debt repayment.
Increasing taxation when debt servicing is taking priority doesn’t really do much. If an economy is shrinking then the debt/GDP ration tends to climb no matter how much money is being raised to be thrown at the debt.
Just listened and what I heard Bradford saying is that the Greens have sold out… because. She doesn’t actually explain other than to say that business support the policy and that the policy will explicitly mean no social spending, but she doesn’t say how or why. She also says that they (both parties I guess) haven’t made any policy announcements regarding social spending, which I find quite extraordinary given that for the last couple of years the Greens have spoken and acted on this repeatedly.
At the end she gets a bit better where she makes a comparison with Labour in the 2000s and how they tinkered around the edges with social policy. And I agree there is a danger here for that to happen again, which is why we need the ratio of L to G MPs to be as even as possible so that the Greens have the power to push the govt left. It would be way better if we looked at what Clark’s govt did and compare it to what L/G now are intending and see what is similar and what is different. At the moment I’m just seeing a lot of reaction with little analysis.
I understand where Bradford is coming from. She didn’t get the opportunity to elaborate. But she is saying the economic agreement signals no change from how the Labour Party operated in 2000-2007: ie tinkering around the edges, and delivering a situation where the Nats, once in power again, can shift things even further rightwards.
Bradford particularly pointed out the way the latest Labour-Green agreement aims to get business onside as a priority, rather than address the pressing issues for the struggling Kiwis they should be supporting as a priority.
If we prompt New Zealand voters to think about money first, they aren’t going to think about common good, about ensuring their neighbours have a good life too. They’re going to think “actually, getting another block of cheese each week does sound good” and the right’s fourth term is secured. They don’t even have to work for it, because when we explicitly buy into their values, it weakens our own.
It cuts out the heart of our politics.
I think Bradford’s RNZ interview opens the way for the logic of a new left wing party. That may be where her thinking is headed. She tried Mana, so what else is there?
I agree with both Sue and Stephanie’s analysis but the answer is not another left-wing party – the answer is to try and influence the leftish parties we have. You don’t have to join them to do that – you can lobby relentlessly with well researched material directed at any of the MPs who may be sympathetic.
It takes too long to get a party to the stage where it can have a significant political role – Mana tried but IMO made a fatal error getting involved with Kim Dotcom and lost the momentum it had. A huge amount of energy went into Mana and it is hard to keep up the support from volunteers without any sign that they are getting anywhere.
Agree, Karen. But I think that’s maybe where Bradford’s thinking is going. Although, she also does a very good job of holding Labour & the Greens to account.
which is why we need the ratio of L to G MPs to be as even as possible so that the Greens have the power to push the govt left
But the Greens have just signed up to this notion of having debt sit at no more than 20% of GDP. You can’t really get any more non- left than that. (I mean, sure, yo could go for 10% or 5% – but the whole point is that the focus they’re applying to debt is absolutely a right wing focus – liberal)
Even if that were true (and that’s not quite how it was framed in the document), they’re still to the left of every other party in parliament. And that one aspect of what the Greens are doing doesn’t shift their whole kaupapa and policy platform to the right of centre. So having maximum MPs in parliament will give them more chance of moving Labour in the direction of Green Party policy (by all means try and make the argument that GP policy is largely right wing).
I’m not sure what you expect given that Labour are going to run a neoliberal govt albeit a centre left one. Seriously, since the announcement was made I’ve yet to see a credible alternative presented (haven’t read the CTU one yet). Stephanie had a go by saying that they should have focussed on people not finances, but it still doesn’t address the issue of needing the business community on board to govern, and needing to present as credible to get that chunk of the electorate who vote on credibility over the cluster fuck that has been Labour for the past decade.
On climate change alone that’s critical, because the only other option is a 4th term NACT govt. Bradford obviously thinks that being liked by the business community is the end of the world. I think it’s just a natural consequence of lefties not voting Green while they were still radical and the Greens now positioning themselves where they can do the most good within the limitations they’re presented with. Personally I think it’s a piece of leftie bullshit to condemn them on this, because they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
The Greens don’t sit neatly into the left/right box you want to frame them in. They’ll use the tools available to them, but I’m guessing you are looking at the policy within a conventional political framework as well as not looking at it within the broader actions of the Greens.
It’s been stated, alluded to and presented over and over again. Focus on necessary social investment. Borrow to fund that if necessary.
Debt levels do not matter. They really don’t. All this nonsense about a need to pay it down is absolute ideological tosh that, if followed through on, inflicts huge amounts of damage on society and people.
Recent and less recent history is awash with ugly real world examples of what happens when debt repayment takes precedence over social investment.
Even if that were true (and that’s not quite how it was framed in the document), they’re still to the left of every other party in parliament.
No they are not.
And that one aspect of what the Greens are doing doesn’t shift their whole kaupapa and policy platform to the right of centre.
Yes it does.
So having maximum MPs in parliament will give them more chance of moving Labour in the direction of Green Party policy (by all means try and make the argument that GP policy is largely right wing).
All their policies are beholden to or limited by their economic positioning. And that’s unabashedly liberal – something they just ‘officially’ signed up to and crowed about the other day.
I’m not sure what you expect given that Labour are going to run a neoliberal govt albeit a centre left one. Seriously, since the announcement was made I’ve yet to see a credible alternative presented (haven’t read the CTU one yet).
See the other reply I made.
Stephanie had a go by saying that they should have focussed on people not finances, but it still doesn’t address the issue of needing the business community on board to govern, and needing to present as credible to get that chunk of the electorate who vote on credibility over the cluster fuck that has been Labour for the past decade.
If the belief is that business being on board is more important than people being on board, then they’re lost (and will hopefully sink without a trace soon)
On climate change alone that’s critical, because the only other option is a 4th term NACT govt. Bradford obviously thinks that being liked by the business community is the end of the world. I think it’s just a natural consequence of lefties not voting Green while they were still radical and the Greens now positioning themselves where they can do the most good within the limitations they’re presented with. Personally I think it’s a piece of leftie bullshit to condemn them on this, because they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Some might view your loyalty to ‘the party’ as noble. But blaming voters for a political party’s shortcomings isn’t flash. Neither is any attempt to play some minor fear card (Nat term no. 4) , because that’s usually a precursor to some ultimatum on the need to ‘vote for the lesser evil’ or you’re a part of the problem nonsense.
The Greens don’t sit neatly into the left/right box you want to frame them in. They’ll use the tools available to them, but I’m guessing you are looking at the policy within a conventional political framework as well as not looking at it within the broader actions of the Greens.
Left and right are economic concepts. The Greens have announced they will adhere to right wing (liberal) economic demands.
I agree with Sue Bradford with the anti smacking laws, but not on her opinions on the Greens MoU with Labour. The greens should push Labour centre left which is where Labour need to be (but in the right areas).
I’d also like to see Mana get through. That’s MMP, just as we have the far right ideology from National and ACT we need to have some balance from the far left. What is missing in NZ debate is fresh ideas and how to deal with 21st century issues especially globalism.
A Chinese bidder for the rail link is proposing to possibly house 1000’s of workers in a cruise ship. Previously, infrastructure projects paid for by NZ tax payers would be good, creating local jobs and opportunities, nowadays, infrastructure projects seem to do the opposite with cheaper workers from overseas being bought in to ‘work’, quality questionable (trains full of asbestos), housing and rents escalating with the amount of ‘new’ workers flooding in, more transport issues from the ‘new’ workers and their families seem to be coming too, and their health, education needs being met by local taxpayers and often bankrupting local businesses with the noise and disruption caused by the 6 years of construction around them.
At the end of the day most of the profits from the infrastructure project go off shore to the parent company. NZ gets little from it and most local people are worse off. Then they ask the local people still employed to stump up more taxes to pay for it all these important infrastructure projects.
My concerns about Labour and Greens is that are still in denial about the actual real effects on local people under globalism and they still think about it in terms of 20th century globalism. Going rah rah to globalism in the 21st century seems akin to forcing inequality on the local community.
Personally I think the Chinese would be amenable for these concerns because they look to the long term relationship, not the short term like the Natz.
Another term of the Natz will be the death for anybody renting, Maori, the environment and hollowing out the middle class further and escalating housing, transport, immigration scams and pollution crisis.
Politicians need to look around them at the US, UK and what normal people are telling them – the messages that are resonating – because people want free borders and selected immigration, but not some free for all that turns their day to day life into a noise, pollution filled, insecure work, struggle. Politicians need to rethink globalism and do proper accounting both financially and socially – before it leads to more climate change and societal disruption.
Their obligation should be to their own citizens not global opportunities for the .1% and an ideology that works like a Ponzi scheme.
They also need to factor in, those local people become more desperate, or who have never had a proper job and now can’t even access welfare. The government war on P for example is a joke!
We wouldn’t need to be building more prisons and having more police, if society starts to give young people a decent upbringing (not a massive percentage living below the poverty line) and a real job to go to at the end of it!
And I’m not talking about a minimum waged job on zero hour contracts.
And angry violent parents who are regularly using ‘reasonable force’ to beat their kids is not going to turn these kids around, quite the opposite.
Many people were detained today. This is understandable – thieves are so protective of themselves. But all those who can not be detained against corruption. We are millions.
Много людей задержали сегодня. Это понятно – воры так защищают себя. Но всех, кто против коррупции задержать нельзя. Нас миллионы.— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 26, 2017
Много людей задержали сегодня. Это понятно – воры так защищают себя. Но всех, кто против коррупции задержать нельзя. Нас миллионы.
On March 26, an anti-corruption action took place across Russia, the reason for which was the investigation of the Anti-Corruption Foundation about Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. On the streets were thousands of people (and in Moscow, apparently, more than ten thousand); Hundreds of them were detained by the police (the majority – again, in Moscow). One of the main features of today’s rallies is how massively they turned out in the regions. “Medusa” shows how anti-corruption actions looked in Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, Kirov, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk – and in many other cities.
Yep still an underbelly of violence in our society. Weak selfish people who are still scared to deal with their own stuff so instead they take it out on children – yuck.
I dont quite understand the point of that marty.
Are you perhaps suggesting that those who think the anti smacking legislation was bad lawmaking that has not reduced violence against kids, are somhow engaging in or promoting violence against kids?
Certainly that was a strong campaign theme at the time that was harmful and improper then as it would be now.
If someone is a pro smacker and wants the law reversed then imo that is evidence that there is stuff that need to work on in a personal way and they should be given the resources and education to work through that stuff rather than smacking.
what about someone who is “anti smacker” and wants the law changed?
I think you are trying to deny the existence of these people!
my point is that Winston believes they exist and some of them will vote NZF for no other reason then to say “we exist”
There was and is no ‘anti-smacking’ legislation. There was legislation that removed the defence that was used by some charged with physical assaults on children.
this is what we are discussing
New section 59 substituted
Section 59 is repealed and the following section substituted:
“59 Parental control
“(1) Every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent of the child is justified in using force if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances and is for the purpose of—
“(a) preventing or minimising harm to the child or another person; or
“(b) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence; or
“(c) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour; or
“(d) performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.
“(2) Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.
“(3) Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).
“(4) To avoid doubt, it is affirmed that the Police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against a parent of a child or person in the place of a parent of a child in relation to an offence involving the use of force against a child, where the offence is considered to be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution.”
looking at this my opinion is
1 the whole thing has been horribly misrepresented (by parties for and against!) and winston is poised to take advantage of that
2 section 4 is just wrong!
(1) Every parent of a child and, subject to subsection (3), every person in the place of the parent of a child is justified in using force by way of correction towards the child, if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances.
Repealing the act that repealed the above legalises smacking.
That is why I say people who even use the term anti-smacking just like violence against children. The promote it by the use of the term, and want to perpetuate it by deliberate misleading the public, and debasing the debate.
It is a argument by some people who have no power, and get their jollies by beating up little children. I really do wish we lived in a society that was beyond that sort of thing.
But it would appear, that the child beaters want another round of us reminding them that they are, the scum of the earth.
“There was legislation that removed the defence that was used by some charged with physical assaults on children.”
that is also my recall that this was prompted by a series of cases where sec 59 was sucessfully used as a defense where children surffered injury.
1 I have a very dim view of lawmakers and laws that are a response to specific cases
2 at the time it was also suggested that sec 59 could have been altered somehow thus
“nothing in sec 1 shall be a defense where physical or mental harm is caused to a child.” Not proposing that as “the solution” just suggesting that that was maby not sufficiently explored.
But to get back to my first post, It looks like Winston is positioning NZF to collect on the flustercluck that was the passing of this amendment and perhaps continuing to deligitimise , misrepresent , and demonise those who hold a different view on it might not serve “the left” here.
Oh and just to be completely clear I am personally opposed to any form of violence as a “correction” , which includes much of what happens in our “corrections” services!
How long can our high waged Auckland economy continue to be able to pay these prices for 366m2 sections ?? Yes $815k starting from !!! Or a 425m2 for $869k http://www.realestate.co.nz/3039262 http://www.realestate.co.nz/3039270 http://www.realestate.co.nz/3028664
And No I am not a realestate agent using this has a means of target marketing my properties to all you wealthy land owners at The Std.
Hate to be The Govt if cards should tumble, and there are signs of tremors being felt in Jafaland.
I was buying my own kit back in 90’s, hell we had to buy cam nets for our V8 Landrovers and even had to make our gun mounts for the GPMG’s / LSW C9’s so its not new.
If we want spare parts for the V8 Landrovers we went to the wreckers yard on Blenheim Rd in CHCH as it was quicker than ordering thru the system.
Were you reimbursed at all? Because if my employer expected me to fork out for the equipment I use for my job, I’d be presenting him with a bundle of receipts.
Nope, we were joking about it at reunion last Apr in Dunedin when some wag produced a couple of receipts (Doyles Ex Army Supplies in Manchester St I think) and I think we would’ve been wasting our time anyway. Things got real bad when OP Raidan kick off, but’s another story.
In Oz I can claim any kit that I buy back on tax, but I must admit my Macpac Bivi bag I brought back mids 90’s CHCH is still going strong after all years before Macpac move manufacturing overseas in the late 90s. Can’t knock NZ made goods when you can get it.
Agree. If we are going to order soldiers into harms way, then they should have the best gear possible.
However I do not think we should be ordering them to protect US corporate profits.
“If we are going to order soldiers into harms way, then they should have the best gear possible.”
We are always lending/ loaning the NZDF some of our kit for deployments or even for a bog standard exercise here in Oz either because NZDF has short fall in their SOE, don’t have the equipment full stop or they had to leave it behind as the Aircraft maxed out due to weight issues and hope catches up with on the next flight whenever that might be. Mind you when we come to NZ they loan us their cold weather gear as we don’t get that white stuff called snow in 95% of our training areas here in Oz.
Why does Winston want a referendum? We had one with an overwhelming result.
More money wasted on ‘consultation’ when the ‘people’ have spoken against the stupid law.
The Greens want a capital gains tax, generally but also specifically to address that aspect of the Ak housing crisis. They also want to reduce income tax by using a carbon tax to pay for government spending (can’t remember how that exactly works, you can look it up).
A capital gains tax is not the answer often their are so many ways for rich people to avoid it. If they really want to tax property they need something that is unrelated to a person’s income tax – more like a stamp duty which is pretty difficult to avoid not matter how rich you are.
A person that invests millions in property in NZ, does not live here and just never sells would not pay any tax under the capital gains model and that is increasingly what NZ is going to look like with offshore corporates taking over the rental supply. Let alone pretending to live there to avoid it etc etc.
UK has capital gains taxes, stamp duty, 17.5 VAT and still a massive housing shortage.
In fact the UK have every tax under the sun apart from a financial transaction tax.
They subscribe to the foreign investment model of anybody in the world being able to purchase a property in the UK.
Capital gains is 20th century thinking. They need to switch it up to what is really going on under globalism and why inequality is increasing.
Maybe a shift from taxing income from labour to taxing income from capital? Purely taxing wealth you need to be careful about people who are income poor but have wealth due to stupidly inflated asset values such as housing.
In any case I despair at the way TOP have stupidly discredited the whole idea by wanting to tax people on the value of their own family home, not just their ‘investment’ properties. Only an ex-neoliberal purist like Morgan could do something so unappealing to the public. (It makes me think he may not be so ‘ex’ after all)
The tax on the home (that he sees as an investment) would be a given percentage of something like 5% of its value with an initial value exempt from the tax altogether. And (the claim is) that cost would be more than off-set for the vast majority by a concomitant cut in income tax…and phased in over time so people can adjust their circumstances accordingly.
Now, I don’t think it’s perfect and I agree it might result in a few unfair cases coming to light (big house and no income). But then, what we have now is diabolically unfair to swathes of people who have no room for maneuver.
The family home cannot be excluded.
That just makes for a loophole that wealthy people can drive a bus through.
Ordinary home owners will be better off with TOP’s policy as the housing taxes will be offset by income tax/GST decreases.
To Bearded Git: In your comments when using the term investor, you are including/excluding which groups? eg. people on a visa permit, overseas students, etc
The statistics are clear: fewer Kiwis are living in their own home – more Kiwis are renting. The home ownership rate has been falling since a peak in the early 1990s and is now at the lowest level since 1946 (using my estimates to update 2013 Census data). There has been no improvement in making houses more affordable. There has been no tangible improvement in renting. In places like Auckland, the average rent is over a quarter of gross income of an average family.
If it goes ahead, it will be the second time the minister has faced Salisbury-related legal action. Parata first attempted to close the school in 2012 but lost in the High Court.”
Rock on Salisbury School 😀 Proud of you all.
Salisbury would like parents and educationalists from across New Zealand to come forward with any stories of trying but failing to get a student into the IWS.
The baby boomer mafia and winston peters have really sunk to a new low.
Apparently because I was never given the bash by my parents i should be out robbing dairys because anyone who doesnt get hidings is a sociopath.
Mental!
Just like how banning begging gets rid of poverty and kicking people off of benifits doesn’t increase homeless.
The cradle to the grave generation who pulled the ladder up on every forth coming generation so we couldn’t receive the help they did. … this generation. …
They say we need to raise the pension age but not till they are all dead….
Ya own all the homes, never had to havea student loan and now you want us to work an extra two years but not you….
Oooh wouldn’t they be in for a shock once us millennials realized what a con they’ve played on us.
We have some of the lowest elderly poverty in the oecd world and highest childhood poverty. Mental.
Hard to find any common ground witj a generation that thinks greed is good and that everyone needs to harden up and wants to bash the kids.
Paul has a guest post on the Daily Blog today. He is introduced as the bloke who was banned from the Standard for three years for suggesting that left, liberals and progressives should work together to change the government. This is not how I recall it at all. I thought it was more to do with misrepresenting an author. Probably won’t bother going there for a while.
I have a friend who spent some time talking about how happy they were after their breakup, not bovvered at all, yet somehow what the ex was doing always managed to sneak back into the discussion. That somehow seems relevant 🙂
*they’re better now, I’m pleased to report. It’s a process.
It will be odd for those who get serious about fully insulating their homes in order to conserve energy, and install solar water heating. Their drop in electricity use will be penalised by having to pay much more for electricity. So the best action for Electricity Suppliers is for us to use heaps of power, leave the windows open, tear out insulation, have long showers and pay huge power bills.
Of course the more people who use solar energy the longer the power delivery system would have before paying for upgrades. Surely?
But this is the free market mate, its more efficient this way /sarc
I think that its the owners (overseas fund managers) of our transmission network protecting their (not ours) investment. but hey we need investment. dont we?
antoine go to their website and look at the bio,s of these people. They got us into this mess in the first place. We have a revolvind door industry executivepolicy advisors situation here. what they are doing is immoral and anti democratic. Their “reports” are not intended to inform at all but to influence policy for their personal and sector profit.
> So the best action for Electricity Suppliers is for us to use heaps of power
That’s right, you can’t expect an old style electricity supplier to encourage you to use less power (Although some of them actally do)
> Of course the more people who use solar energy the longer the power delivery system would have before paying for upgrades. Surely?
No, solar on its own won’t delay upgrades to the power network, because the sun doesnt shine at the times when we need power most. Solar + battery is another matter.
I love how they’ve mastered the art of feigning concern for the poor. “This new electricity technology will harm poor people… the very same people we don’t give a toss about for 364 days of the year, but today, and because we’re being paid a lot of money, please join us in doing a terrible job of pretending to feel sympathy for the less fortunate. Thank you.”
I had a look at it. No, it’s not a hit on renewable energy. It’s pointing out some problems with the way electricity is priced. For instance, if someone had an electric car, there’s not enough incentive for them to charge it overnight (as opposed to evening when the demand for power is highest).
in my new home, we had a holiday home rented by out of townees for a week.
the first night they were at said property they started a fire, at 4.30 am the alarm goes of, and Mr. Voluntary Firefighter drives of screeching tires into the night.
Several hours later he comes back with the news that hey could not save the house, but managed to save the property next door, that there is a report of two people missing and they were hoping that ones it was save to go into the wreck they would not find these two guys and their dogs. – they did not in the end to the relieve of everyone.
Figures the fire was lit deliberately, the guys were cooking meth, somehow a fire started and they could not stop it (fire extinguisher near by the initial burn site), so they started a fire in each room and ran away.
Two days later a big headline in the local rural paper….Coppers found a dozen of marijuana plants and took them off the market ohmygosh the war on certain drugs is working. !!!!!!!!!!
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...
While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in. They're planning a lot of infrastructure spending as economic stimulus, and have asked for proposals which can start the moment ...
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...
Image credit:Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ...
Yesterday's Horizon poll showing support for a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum sliding into the majority for the first time in a year looked like good news for reformers – and it probably is. But the result warrants some scrutiny.The poll is the fifth in a series commissioned ...
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Peninsula for more than 30 years. In all that time, ...
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...
The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives, by reducing the spread of covid-19. We won't know if its really working for another week, but given the devastation that will result if it doesn't - 14,000 dead is the optimistic scenario - its definitely worth trying. But pausing the ...
. . March 30: Day five of living in lock-down… Woke up still in darkness. Alarm hadn’t gone off. Turn to radio clock; it’s a few minutes after 6am… I lie there in the dark, waiting to drift off to sleep… but it ain’t happening. Clock ticks over to 6.55 ...
The story of Les Gray, the public sector psychologist who told the truth about his use of cannabis and set off a storm, has a special place in the lore of cannabis reform in New Zealand.When Paul Shannon interviewed Gray for the 'Dope and Hope' issue of Planet magazine in ...
by Phil Duncan For Marxists, a key concern about social trends is their context – not just their causes, but why they happen when they do. Events and phenomena have causes, but they also are time or period-specific. While much of the left have capitulated recently to postmodernism, most notably ...
Since the lockdown began, we've all suddenly been reminded who the actually essential workers in our society are: not the people at the top who pay themselves the big bucks and rort the perks, but the people at the bottom they screw over and squeeze: cleaners, warehouse staff, truck drivers ...
Kia ora! As I've watched nearly all my remaining work vanish over the past couple of days, it has occured to me that one good way to keep me away from arguing with fools on Twitter all the time (in the knowledge that all we're really doing is processing our ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to trying to extirpate the virus that causes COVID-19 from its shores. To do that, as a society we’ve moved to “Level 4”. That means adapting to unprecedented restrictions on our personal freedoms, particularly to our rights to move freely and associate with friends and ...
When the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency last week, she handed the police powers to enforce it. And almost immediately, we started hearing about heavy-handed, arbitrary "enforcement" by police who (at best) cared more about order than law, or (more likely) had no idea what the rules were ...
. . Lock Down: Day 4 – A photo essay with observations . March 29: Usual wake up routine as RNZ snaps on my radio-clock. Jim Mora’s voice slowly enters my conciousness; there’s talk of a second wave of covid19 taking hold in South Korea; the week in Parliament – ...
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Misinformation kills’: The link between coronavirus conspiracies and climate denialGrist / Rob Kim / Stringer / CSA Images Scientific ...
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...
. . Lock Down: Day 3 – A photo essay with observations . March 28: First day of the first weekend in Lock Down. It feels like it’s been weeks since only Level 3 was declared last Tuesday, only four days ago. Woke up this morning to RNZ; coffee; toast, ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 22, 2020 through Sat, Mar 28, 2020Articles Linked to on FacebookSun, Mar 22, 2020In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of Disasters by Chelsea Harvey, ...
I’m here in lockdown with my flatmate and her two girls (6 and 2) and it. is. a time. They’re usually really active so to start with the only boardgame in the house is the copy of Guess Who that the 6 year old got for her birthday. Flatmate commented ...
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...
. . Lock Down: Day 2 – A photo essay with observations . March 27 – Day 2 of our Strange New World. The Park and Ride near my suburb, usually filled with hundreds of vehicles, had just… four; . . Another drive into Wellington City on a highway nearly ...
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to rent a property on the open market in New Zealand, which is one of the most expensive in the entire world, you’ll likely be keenly aware of just how arrogant and entitled landlords and their real estate agents can be.Unfortunately for ...
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights:In this legal blog we outline some ...
by Equipo Jurídico Pueblos and Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (25/03/2020) An escape plan in question On the night of March 21st and the early morning of the 22nd, the forces of the Colombian state stormed into the Modelo prison in Bogotá, murdering 23 prisoners and injuring 83, in response to the ...
When the government banned semi-automatic weapons in response to a terrorist atrocity, gun-nuts were outraged. Mired in toxic American gun culture, they thought owning weapons whose sole purpose was killing people was some sort of "constitutional right", a necessity for "defending themselves" against the government. Now, the Court of Appeal ...
Just before midnight on Wednesday March 25, Aotearoa New Zealand entered a countrywide alert level four lockdown. For at least the next four weeks, everyone who isn’t an essential worker is confined to their bubble. We are doing this to stop the explosive growth in people contracting and dying from ...
. . Lock Down: Day 1 – A photo essay with observations . Day one of the Level 4 nationwide lock-down (or, DefCon 4 as I sometimes cheekily call it) started at 11.59PM on 25 March. For a moment, most of the nation held it’s collective breath. In that brief ...
Broad, Sunlit Uplands: How those words fired my young imagination! Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say: how those words fused, in my young mind, with the image printed on every packet of Fielder’s Cornflour. Always fascinated by history, especially modern history, I cannot hear Churchill’s wonderfully evocative words, even ...
. . 24 March 2020 9.46AM Number of covid19 cases in Aotearoa New Zealand: 102 . As of 11.59 on Thursday, most of New Zealand will go into “lock down”. People will be expected not to travel to work; not to socialise; and to stay home. I will not be ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections A respected research group, Project Drawdown, finds that deploying solutions consistent with meeting the Paris climate targets would cost tens of trillions of dollars globally. But crucially, those outlays would also yield long-term savings many times larger than the up-front costs. The new 2020 Drawdown ...
It will pass. What happens next? Not immediately, but longer term. There are many opinions, fewer certainties. Will it “change everything!” as many confidently, and contradictorily predict? In this post I look at how foresight can help bound some of the uncertainties so you can more objectively consider the future. ...
We’ve been meaning t write something on Cuba and the coronavirus but have just discovered a very good article on the subject in the US left publication Jacobin. The article looks at how Cuba, a poor country but one where capitalism has been done away with, is leading the way ...
In 2018, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey - two British citizens who had purportedly been stripped of their citizenship by the British government - were captured while fighting for Isis in Syria. The British government then conspired to hand them over to the US, and agreed to provide evidence ...
Transformers: The disaster of the Great Depression was transformed into a new and fairer society by the democratic socialism of the First Labour Government. The disaster of the Covid-19 Pandemic offers a similar transformative possibility to the Labour-NZ First-Green Government. Seize the time, Jacinda! You will never have a better ...
Tamper with The System? Well, we already are. But there's a difference between accidentally trickling sand into a precision gearbox versus formulating a plan to alter it on the fly with improvements in mind. One action is more or less innocently unscrupulous, the other amenable to earning an easy ...
Associate Prof George Thomson, Louise Delany, Prof Nick WilsonWhile it is possible that New Zealand can use intense public health controls to eradicate COVID-19 from the country – we must also plan for other scenarios where thousands of New Zealanders are sick – including many urgently hospitalised.1 Better resilience ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...
We're about to do something unprecedented as a nation. We hope that by taking this extraordinary action before a single life in New Zealand has been lost to the deadly novel virus we will save tens of thousands of lives. Our lives. We'll do it together, in households, in isolation ...
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”So writes the author of Ecclesiastes, a book in the Old Testament that’s counted as a ‘wisdom’ book and written as if by an unnamed king of Jerusalem. But who would have thought there would be a time ...
I was surprised when the prime minister described the Economic Response to Covid-19 package as the ‘largest peacetime government spend in New Zealand's history’. Reflecting – checking through history – I realised that the term ‘spend’ was crucial and the package had no income tax cuts. Even so, it has ...
Years ago the Argentine sociologist Carlos Weisman wrote a book titled “Living within our Means.” It was a critique of Argentine society that focused on the paradoxical question of why, in a land of plenty, there was so much economic instability, inequality, corruption and political turmoil. His conclusion was basically ...
Parliament will be leading by example and adjourning tomorrow after a special sitting to consider an epidemic notice and state of emergency. Day-to-day oversight of the government will be delegated to a select committee. But that's not the only overight mechanism. The OIA will still be law, and (so far) ...
Michael Baker, University of OtagoOverjoyed. That’s not a word epidemiologists normally use, but that’s how I felt after hearing Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement about New Zealand’s COVID-19 shutdown of everything except essential services for at least four weeks from midnight on Wednesday. More than anything, I just ...
How much homelessness is caused by house hoarding? We're about to find out. The pandemic has destroyed tourism, which means that house hoarders who put their hoarded properties up as short-term tourist rentals are now offering them on the ordinary rental market:Property investors are pulling properties from Airbnb to offer ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman It seems like such a simple, straightforward, empowering idea: plant trees – a lot of trees – all over the world, and watch the planet’s temperature fall. Who doesn’t love a tree or two, even far more – the right ...
According to Newshub, Simon Bridges is open to joining a “grand coalition” with Labour as we hunker down to go into a month long lockdown. The idea is sound. Before now, the role of the opposition was to scrutinise and oppose. In the context of what almost amounts to a ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or ...
We need to be lifting our game against COVID-19. You and I need to help those working to prevent the spread of COVID-19 while they’re trying to lift the testing and treatment efforts. We don’t want to be playing this game running backwards. Best to play it solidly forward, from ...
Prof Tony Blakely, Prof Michael Baker, and Prof Nick WilsonThe NZ Government must do more to clearly articulate its COVID-19 strategy: eradication or ‘flattening the curve’ mitigation. But to do so means understanding the maths and ethics of both these strategies. In this blog, we adapt our work for ...
A few days ago I was starting to write something about the pandemic, which now seems unconscionable. It took the form of a letter to an agony aunt:“Dear Deidre, I have an ugly confession. I am quite excited by Covid-19.”This is how the piece went:“I’m not a psychopath, honest. Although the ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Climate Feedback Article Review... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of DisastersThe likelihood of extreme events ...
Last week, the government announced a $12 billion initial package to support people during the pandemic. Today, the Reserve Bank is buying government bonds - effectively printing money - to keep up the money supply during the crisis. Normally such moves would have the right apoplectic. Instead, the National Party ...
I am a pundit, somebody who opines and comments on the news. There are no real qualifications to punditry though having a rudimentary way with words and good general knowledge helps. That is one reason there is a constant oversupply of would-be pundits and why it is quite hard to ...
I recently encountered the following prescription from a Faculty of Education at a leading New Zealand University. At first I wondered if it was another product of the postmodern generator (http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/), designed to create gibberish in the postmodern form, but I’m told it is real: The “schooled” society: Towards the ...
The coronavirus pandemic has of course had a major impact on individual lives and on societies as a whole. But, long after the crisis has passed (assuming it does), we will begin to realise that its real and lasting significance lies in the lessons it has taught us, if only ...
COVID-19 has plunged Aotearoa New Zealand (indeed, the world) into territory that, while maybe not totally unprecedented, certainly hasn’t been seen during the lifetimes of most of us here today. Our borders are closed to non-citizens, we’re being told not to gather in groups of more than 500 outside/100 inside, ...
For the last few weeks, I’ve been urging you to prepare yourself, your family, business, and community for Covid-19. Now it’s time for real action. Yesterday the director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announced another 13 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, bringing our total to date to 52. ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 15, 2020 through Sat, Mar 21, 2020 Editor's Pick Now Isn’t the Time to Forget About Our Climate Change EffortsTasha Tilberg, Lindsey Wixson, and Liu Wen photographed ...
by Jan Rivers The article has been corrected to show that it was Ewen MacAskill, former Guardian journalist and not Luke Harding who travelled to meet Edward Snowden with journalist Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras. Some of the Guardian’s well-known journalists who did not sign the protest letter are ...
by Cultural Worker Late March 2020 amidst the virus. With gigs crashing and burning all around it was without much hope that I called a long standing rest home booking: “ Hi, I’m supposed to be entertaining at your place this afternoon – is it still on?” “”If you don’t ...
Whenever people demand real change from their politicians, we're told that "politics is the art of the possible". The implication is that change isn't possible, so we'd better just get used to the sucky status quo. But now that there's a pandemic, a lot of things we were previously told ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
As New Zealanders brace for a global downturn due to Covid-19, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says his Coalition Government’s rescue package "more significant" than any other he's seen around the world. The Coalition is to reveal a multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan on Tuesday afternoon designed to cushion the economic blow ...
We know some people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
Minister of Transport Phil Twyford has today announced details of the Government’s support package to keep key air freight moving and ensure New Zealanders retain access to essential goods during the four-week level 4 lockdown. “The Government is working with airlines and air freight operators to ensure New Zealand’s key ...
New Zealand moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level 3 – Restrict New Zealand to move up to COVID-19 Alert Level 4 – Eliminate, in 48 hours Two-staged approach to give people and businesses time to prepare Level 3, from tomorrow Non-essential businesses must close All events and gatherings must be ...
Good afternoon The Cabinet met this morning to discuss our next actions in the fight against COVID-19. Like the rest of the world, we are facing the potential for devastating impacts from this virus. But, through decisive action, and through working together, do we have a small window to get ...
The Government is announcing significant further support for the economy, workers and businesses as the country unites to prepare for Alert Level 4 in the fight against COVID-19. Cabinet today agreed to remove the cap on the Government’s wage subsidy scheme, which will inject a further $4 billion into the ...
The Government is backing the Reserve Bank’s latest action to support the economy by reducing longer-term interest rates, meaning lower costs for businesses and mortgage holders, and a lower currency to help our exporters. The Minister of Finance has signed a memorandum of understanding and a letter of indemnity with ...
The Government has asked the Commerce Commission to take account of the exceptional circumstances created by COVID-19 when monitoring business behaviour in coming weeks. “The purpose of my request to the Commerce Commission is to make sure businesses can work together in ways that will allow them to provide ...
The New Zealand Government has temporarily closed its High Commission in Bridgetown, Barbados and its Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Due to the increasing scarcity of air links in and out of Bridgetown and Yangon, and the pressure COVID-19 is placing ...
Associate Health and Whānau Ora Minister Peeni Henare has today announced the Government’s plan to support Māori communities and businesses in the face of COVID-19. “Our Government’s $12.1 billion economic package will help many Māori whānau, workers and businesses, whether it’s through wage subsidies, income support and worker redeployment, or ...
The Government and the hospitality industry have worked together to produce guidelines to assist with managing and reducing transmission of COVID-19, Health Minister David Clark announced today. The guidelines developed between the Government, Hospitality New Zealand and SkyCity Entertainment Group, set out how the new restrictions on physical distancing and ...
Four stage Alert System for COVID-19 announced New Zealand moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level 2 – Reduce Contact New Zealanders over 70 and those with certain medical conditions told to stay at home as much as they can to reduce risk of contact with the virus Workplaces to implement ...
Despite a surge in pre-lockdown adoptions, the SPCA is still housing plenty of animals and wondering what the future holds as families and owners feel the strain, reports Bonnie Sumner. When the national lockdown announcement was made on March 23, people began turning up to their local SPCA centre ...
Beyond the direct impacts on demography and genome, pandemics have had dramatic and far-reaching impact on human societies over history. What will be Covid-19's be? As governments around the world try to contain the pandemic of Covid-19, they often draw on experiences of past epidemics. The swift and (so far) successful ...
Under Covid-19, how our crime situations develop will depend heavily on how our institutions and societies respond, writes Professor Elizabeth Stanley We talk a lot about fear in criminology. More precisely, we reflect on how our political, legal, economic and socio-cultural systems create conditions in which we fear certain people ...
When we rethink our economy and how we support citizens, we must end the 19th Century bias against those in relationships, writes the University of Auckland's Susan St John It is vital that all new welfare policies to cushion the Covid-19 downturn are consistent with desirable reform principles. But to ...
Jill Herron speaks with two stranded Czech travellers whose working holiday is over but who, like thousands of other foreign nationals, have nowhere to go. Roman Cermak is worried about his mum who works as a nurse in the Czech Republic. He’s also worried about his elderly grandmother as his ...
In the days ahead we face a choice as a nation - to behave out of fear, or out of courage, writes Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod. Which will it be? Here’s a joke for our times: What should we do if we know the aliens are coming? Lower the interest rates. Perhaps ...
Having dealt with anxiety and body blows in her hockey career, Black Stick Rachel McCann has created a podcast that could help those struggling to find positivity in lockdown. During these long, monotonous and uncertain days of the Covid-19 lockdown, Black Stick Rachel McCann’s passion project could come into its own. ...
Anna Locker-Lampson is hoping against hope that the first readers and writers festival in Waipawa will go ahead. Between the Lines, the inaugural Readers and Writers Festival at Waipawa in the Central Hawkes Bay, is scheduled for July 23-26. We have yet to cancel. It’s with an undying optimism that ...
Pacific nations have rolled out strict responses to Covid-19, with several remaining Covid-19-free, Teuila Fuatai reports With no confirmed Covid-19 cases, Sāmoa is among several Pacific nations attempting to balance strict public health measures and regular activity. A two-week state of emergency, which reduced trading hours and public gatherings, is ...
History warns that we should be wary of the misuse of power in the name of public health, writes Scott Hamilton.In the winter of 1913 a group of Māori appeared in the office of Arthur Manning, the mayor of Hamilton. The visitors had tight faces and dirty clothes. They had ...
The more people take part, the better it will be at spotting potential clusters of Covid-19. Siouxsie Wiles explains.You might have heard the prime minister and the director general of health mention in recent days something called FluTracking. What’s it all about? Here’s what you need to know.The FluTracking project ...
Auckland post-punk four piece Swallow the Rat embarked on a US tour just as Covid-19 started to really spread. Guitarist Brian Purington, originally from Austin, Texas, tells the story of a tour interrupted – and how he became one of New Zealand’s first 500 cases of Covid-19.Brian Purington and his ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling As new, stricter measures intended to limit the spread of coronavirus were announced in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, many turned to Google to work out what they meant in practice. According to Google Trends, some of ...
By RNZ News New Zealanders in their 20s are the age group with the biggest numbers of Covid-19 and are “the vector for transmission”, says Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Ardern has thanked NZ for its efforts, but says it is still too early to say if the level four ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristy Hess, Associate Professor (Communication), Deakin University The coronavirus pandemic has spawned a lexicon of its own. We have had to quickly incorporate words like “self-isolation” and “social distancing” into our everyday language to navigate it. “Essential service” is another one. In ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin I was concerned to read last night that Greta Thunberg and her father almost certainly have Covid19; however, because of very restrictive testing criteria used in Sweden, they have not been tested. And I heard yesterday, on a Radio New Zealand news bulletin, a story about ...
Support services have raised alarm bells over the lockdown, saying it could spark more cases of family violence in New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said this afternoon that nearly half of the $27 million allocated for NGOs and community ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Blay, Research Fellow – workforce, Western Sydney University The number of people going to hospital with the coronavirus is expected to rise, putting a strain on our health and aged care services and their workforce. Australian undergraduate student nurses and those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Haiqing Yu, Associate Professor, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Director, Health Program, Grattan Institute The growth in COVID-19 cases in Australia appears to have slowed across all states, through a combination of tighter border control and spatial distancing. With the number of new cases each day growing at a ...
The third in our new series of charts, graphics and data-visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in ...
The Government must stamp out Covid-19 but also answer questions, writes David Williams OPINION: It’s a national emergency, almost all Kiwis are locked down, and all arms of government must work as hard as they can to find, stamp out and eradicate Covid-19. But that doesn’t absolve those taxpayer-paid bureaucrats and ...
Paengawhāwhā (April) also known as Kaipō or Whetūkaupō (Deneb star) is the eleventh month of the Māori year and is a productive time. Get planting!Kia ora e te whānau, ngā mihi mahana o te marama a Paengawhāwhā.March and August are often our most challenging lunar cycles from my observation, and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martina Doblin, Senior Research Fellow, Plant Functional Biology & Climate Change, University of Technology Sydney As the climate warms, the land we use for growing energy-intensive crops such as wheat and corn is becoming less productive. We need to find ways to ...
Helping Low Income Families cope in this time of crisis is critical to their survival says Peter Malcolm Spokesperson for Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc—“Closing the Gap” Families on low incomes need and deserve all the financial help they can ...
With neither a bang nor barely a whimper, barely one week ago New Zealand put being a long established and respected Parliamentary democracy on hold to become a virtual Police state in the ongoing fight against Covid-19, writes Peter Dunne We have settled into a life regime more restrictive ...
Almost a week into the level four lockdown and people are probably starting to feel a little cooped up. To help with this, some subscription services and brands have begun to make their products temporarily free. Here are just some of the things currently on offer.For those with the privilege ...
Life and health insurers are trimming their policy offerings in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, because some risks linked to the virus are deemed too great. Partners Life founder and risk expert Naomi Ballantyne said it was important consumers knew what they were covered for, particularly if they were ...
Life and health insurers are trimming their policy offerings in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, because some risks linked to the virus are deemed too great. Partners Life founder and risk expert Naomi Ballantyne said it was important consumers knew what they were covered for, particularly if they were ...
The housing market continued to perform well through the pre-lockdown period, with properties in all 16 major centres growing in value for the fourth consecutive month. The QV House Price Index data rose 6.1 percent in the year to March, with the average house price rising to $728,276. However, last ...
The District Court continues to operate during the AlertLevel 4 period to deal with priority proceedings as the need arises. For this purpose, there will be District Court Judges and Ministry of Justice staff available. The Chief District Court Judge ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Breunig, Professor of Economics and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University How would you feel if you were having a Zoom meeting with your accountant and they asked “how would you like to ...
Kathmandu has moved to strengthen its finances to counter the impact of the Covid-19 virus. The outdoors clothing retailer will raise $207 million through a sale of new shares, some of which will go to large investment funds, with the balance offered to existing shareholders. Group chief executive Xavier Simonet ...
The country's banks are likely to take a significant hit to their profits from the Covid-19 virus, according to a new report. Business advisory firm KPMG's latest quarterly Financial Institutions Performance Survey for the final three months of last year showed bank profits had already fallen nearly 7 percent, $1.1 ...
Child Poverty Action Group applauds the Prime Minister's move to go hard and early to curb the spread of Covid-19. And we believe the Government needs to take the same approach when it comes to supporting those doing it tough during this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Editor’s note: this is an edited version of a paper written in late March to outline the rationale for a short, sharp lockdown. The full ...
Anna Rawhiti-Connell's ode to Director-General Ashley Bloomfield - the balm for our furrowed brows When children ask me what I did during the great pandemic of the 2020s, I will tell them I participated in idolatry so egregious that the Golden Calf would’ve blushed a dusky shade of metallic rose. Every ...
The Single Object is a series exploring our material culture, examining the meaning and influence of objects that surround us in everyday life. Artist Bronwyn Holloway-Smith shares her obsession with the 30,000km long Southern Cross Cable that connects New Zealand to the internet and the rest of the world, and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Collins, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University To the young and healthy, our new “social distancing” rules may look unnecessarily draconian. If you’re in a demographic that’s low risk for coronavirus, it may be difficult to see the benefit of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Mette Hotker, Lecturer in Social Planning, RMIT University Most Australians know you never end up winning on the pokies. What Australians might not know is that the odds of winning a case against a poker-machine proposal in their local neighbourhood are ...
Sports journalist Jim Kayes was a weekend host for the canned Radio Sport channel - and reckons its demise and cuts to sports reporting nationally can in part be put down to snobbery and neglect. It was never my plan to cover sport but a busted knee saw it happen. ...
The number of Māori academic staff remains disproportionately low at New Zealand universities. Simon Day spoke to three newly appointed Māori professors at the University of Otago about why putting te ao Māori at the centre of their work is so important. Māori participation in tertiary education is steadily increasing. According ...
Wellington, 1 April - Rushing to deal with new vaping legislation during an unprecedented economic lockdown is not just folly, it is anti-democratic, according to a public submission by the New Zealand Initiative. While most businesses and public services ...
As the Covid-19 pandemic takes its toll on the New Zealand economy, Greenpeace is pushing back on industry lobbyists and politicians arguing for weakening and delaying environmental protections. The environment group says that now more than ever, we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Jeffrey, Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute; Professor of Development Geography, University of Melbourne Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown for India’s 1.3 billion people. With just four hours’ notice, the government instructed everyone to ...
In the new series Final Mix, music journalist Yadana Saw chats with local musicians and listens to their latest tracks in the ultimate testing ground: the car. The first episode is with cross-Atlantic country maven Tami Neilson.“There’s before, and then there’s after.”It’s a prophetic lyric on Tami Neilson’s new album ...
With broader testing criteria coming into place, the Government is expecting to discover more Covid-19 cases within the community, Marc Daalder reports The Ministry of Health admitted on Wednesday afternoon that it was likely missing cases of Covid-19 spreading within the community because testing criteria were too narrow. "We still ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is slamming today’s announcement of $25 million — $10 million for local iwi groups and $15 million for Whānau Ora providers — and says that funding based on skin colour at a time when the nation needs to come ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. There were 61 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today, up from the previous day's 58 new cases. Details of how many tests have been completed are now being ...
A non-profit group is signing up qualified health professionals - retired, out of the workforce or part-time - to join a kind-of Home Guard to fill areas of need in the health system during the pandemic. As we enter week two of the Level 4 Covid-19 alert, we need to preserve ...
Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Rāapa/WednesdayToday we’re practising our pronunciation of the letter ‘r’ and in order to do that, we’re going to practise Māori place names. These are probably the words we’ve been taught to pronounce incorrectly the most, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Kearnes, Professor, Environment & Society, School of Humanities and Languages, UNSW Public health messages about COVID-19 have been inconsistent and changed rapidly. Many have called for a unified source of expertise to guide responses to the crisis. However, with the federal, ...
Tim Pankhurst, chief executive of Seafood NZ and former leading newspaper editor, retires this week after 48 years in the workforce. He looks back on a final week like no other. A week ago before the world changed we were fishing at dawn on the shore of the Rangaunu Harbour ...
MPs and economists are calling for greater transparency on the use of welfare and business subsidies, as the Finance Minister outlines the economic challenge ahead for New Zealand.The financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is set to be markedly worse for New Zealand than that from the global financial ...
OPINION:By Laurens Ikinia A sad story has taken place again in the PT Freeport Indonesia gold and copper mine area near Timika in West Papua on Monday with one New Zealander shot dead and seven other workers being severely wounded as reported by Asia Pacific Report yesterday. As ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the comments from Finance Minister Grant Robertson, and National Party MP Gerry Brownlee, calling on councils across New Zealand to look at their books and see what is possible to reduce the rates burden on New Zealanders. ...
What are you going to be watching in April? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Lightbox, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand.Click here to read our listings from March.The BiggiesRun (Season 1 on Neon weekly from April 13)I’m calling it: ...
As millions of Kiwis stay home, power companies say Covid-19 hasn't factored into their annual power price changes, the majority of which kick in on April 1. ...
In these testing times, we’re all spending a fair amount of time on our phones and computers. Here are some simple ways to make that time safer for yourself.As if we weren’t all indoors on our phones enough already, Covid-19 is ensuring that our screen time is going to be ...
As the new season of Kirstie and Phil’s Love It or List It drops, Tara Ward investigates how the gurus can help us with our own interpersonal property dilemmas.We’re approaching the second week of national lockdown, and it’s about now that many of us will begin to have the “love ...
The outside is telling us, ‘I could do that again whenever I wanted. You think about that.’ Read more Lockdown letters here.‘When I’m being a badger I live in a hole and eat earthworms,” the nature writer Charles Foster wrote. “When I’m being an otter I try to catch fish ...
The government is doubling the amount it plans to borrow for the current financial year to pay for its various Covid-19 rescue and support packages. ...
Across the United States the concert halls and theatres are silent. Broadway has shut down. The mighty 3800-seat Metropolitan Opera House is in lock-down. Actors, opera stars and choruses, musicians are on furlough if they are lucky. But the best shows in town remain: the midday news conference by News ...
The Sensible Sentencing Trust (SST) are in absolute shock at the early release of multi-millionaire child sex offender Martin Lawes, after only a mere 18 months into his 4 year and 6 month jail term. SST National spokesperson Jess McVicar said the ...
Our Covid-19 gifs are now available in te reo Māori. Spread the word (while staying at home).The suite of excellent illustrations and gifs created by microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles and illustrator Toby Morris have had an undeniable impact during the Covid-19 crisis. They offer clear communication of sometimes complex concepts, and ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on the Wellington City and Wellington Regional Councils to freeze the funding of their economic and tourism promotion agency after its ill-judged “We Wellington” campaign - wasting tens of thousands in ratepayer ...
Lotta Dann reflects on staying sober in the midst of a global crisis, and shares some advice for those who are looking to cut back. If you’ve seen the endless news reports and social media posts about alcohol, you’d be forgiven for thinking all New Zealanders are drinking away their days ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentPublic health strategy Derek Cheng (Herald): Lockdown ‘not enough’, top professor tells Govt video conference Derek Cheng (Herald): Just when you ...
Open Mike 27/03/2017 
46 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Global response of evapotranspiration ratio to climate conditions and watershed characteristics in a changing environment Greenhouse effect: the relative contributions of emission height and total absorption Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Climate change induced a ...11 hours ago
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...13 hours ago
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...17 hours ago
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...18 hours ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 19 hours ago
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...20 hours ago
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...22 hours ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...1 day ago
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...2 days ago
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...3 days ago
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...3 days ago
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...3 days ago
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...5 days ago
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...5 days ago
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...5 days ago
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights: In this legal blog we outline some ...5 days ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...1 week ago
According to Newshub, Simon Bridges is open to joining a “grand coalition” with Labour as we hunker down to go into a month long lockdown. The idea is sound. Before now, the role of the opposition was to scrutinise and oppose. In the context of what almost amounts to a ...1 week ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or ...1 week ago
A few days ago I was starting to write something about the pandemic, which now seems unconscionable. It took the form of a letter to an agony aunt:“Dear Deidre, I have an ugly confession. I am quite excited by Covid-19.”This is how the piece went:“I’m not a psychopath, honest. Although the ...1 week ago
I am a pundit, somebody who opines and comments on the news. There are no real qualifications to punditry though having a rudimentary way with words and good general knowledge helps. That is one reason there is a constant oversupply of would-be pundits and why it is quite hard to ...1 week ago
COVID-19 has plunged Aotearoa New Zealand (indeed, the world) into territory that, while maybe not totally unprecedented, certainly hasn’t been seen during the lifetimes of most of us here today. Our borders are closed to non-citizens, we’re being told not to gather in groups of more than 500 outside/100 inside, ...2 weeks ago
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...2 days ago
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...5 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...1 week ago
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...13 hours ago
Despite a surge in pre-lockdown adoptions, the SPCA is still housing plenty of animals and wondering what the future holds as families and owners feel the strain, reports Bonnie Sumner. When the national lockdown announcement was made on March 23, people began turning up to their local SPCA centre ...19 mins ago
Beyond the direct impacts on demography and genome, pandemics have had dramatic and far-reaching impact on human societies over history. What will be Covid-19's be? As governments around the world try to contain the pandemic of Covid-19, they often draw on experiences of past epidemics. The swift and (so far) successful ...19 mins ago
Under Covid-19, how our crime situations develop will depend heavily on how our institutions and societies respond, writes Professor Elizabeth Stanley We talk a lot about fear in criminology. More precisely, we reflect on how our political, legal, economic and socio-cultural systems create conditions in which we fear certain people ...19 mins ago
When we rethink our economy and how we support citizens, we must end the 19th Century bias against those in relationships, writes the University of Auckland's Susan St John It is vital that all new welfare policies to cushion the Covid-19 downturn are consistent with desirable reform principles. But to ...19 mins ago
Jill Herron speaks with two stranded Czech travellers whose working holiday is over but who, like thousands of other foreign nationals, have nowhere to go. Roman Cermak is worried about his mum who works as a nurse in the Czech Republic. He’s also worried about his elderly grandmother as his ...19 mins ago
In the days ahead we face a choice as a nation - to behave out of fear, or out of courage, writes Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod. Which will it be? Here’s a joke for our times: What should we do if we know the aliens are coming? Lower the interest rates. Perhaps ...19 mins ago
Having dealt with anxiety and body blows in her hockey career, Black Stick Rachel McCann has created a podcast that could help those struggling to find positivity in lockdown. During these long, monotonous and uncertain days of the Covid-19 lockdown, Black Stick Rachel McCann’s passion project could come into its own. ...19 mins ago
Anna Locker-Lampson is hoping against hope that the first readers and writers festival in Waipawa will go ahead. Between the Lines, the inaugural Readers and Writers Festival at Waipawa in the Central Hawkes Bay, is scheduled for July 23-26. We have yet to cancel. It’s with an undying optimism that ...19 mins ago
Pacific nations have rolled out strict responses to Covid-19, with several remaining Covid-19-free, Teuila Fuatai reports With no confirmed Covid-19 cases, Sāmoa is among several Pacific nations attempting to balance strict public health measures and regular activity. A two-week state of emergency, which reduced trading hours and public gatherings, is ...19 mins ago
History warns that we should be wary of the misuse of power in the name of public health, writes Scott Hamilton.In the winter of 1913 a group of Māori appeared in the office of Arthur Manning, the mayor of Hamilton. The visitors had tight faces and dirty clothes. They had ...47 mins ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling As new, stricter measures intended to limit the spread of coronavirus were announced in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, many turned to Google to work out what they meant in practice. According to Google Trends, some of ...8 hours ago
Support services have raised alarm bells over the lockdown, saying it could spark more cases of family violence in New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said this afternoon that nearly half of the $27 million allocated for NGOs and community ...10 hours ago
The Government must stamp out Covid-19 but also answer questions, writes David Williams OPINION: It’s a national emergency, almost all Kiwis are locked down, and all arms of government must work as hard as they can to find, stamp out and eradicate Covid-19. But that doesn’t absolve those taxpayer-paid bureaucrats and ...12 hours ago
With neither a bang nor barely a whimper, barely one week ago New Zealand put being a long established and respected Parliamentary democracy on hold to become a virtual Police state in the ongoing fight against Covid-19, writes Peter Dunne We have settled into a life regime more restrictive ...13 hours ago
Life and health insurers are trimming their policy offerings in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, because some risks linked to the virus are deemed too great. Partners Life founder and risk expert Naomi Ballantyne said it was important consumers knew what they were covered for, particularly if they were ...13 hours ago
The housing market continued to perform well through the pre-lockdown period, with properties in all 16 major centres growing in value for the fourth consecutive month. The QV House Price Index data rose 6.1 percent in the year to March, with the average house price rising to $728,276. However, last ...13 hours ago
Kathmandu has moved to strengthen its finances to counter the impact of the Covid-19 virus. The outdoors clothing retailer will raise $207 million through a sale of new shares, some of which will go to large investment funds, with the balance offered to existing shareholders. Group chief executive Xavier Simonet ...14 hours ago
The country's banks are likely to take a significant hit to their profits from the Covid-19 virus, according to a new report. Business advisory firm KPMG's latest quarterly Financial Institutions Performance Survey for the final three months of last year showed bank profits had already fallen nearly 7 percent, $1.1 ...14 hours ago
Anna Rawhiti-Connell's ode to Director-General Ashley Bloomfield - the balm for our furrowed brows When children ask me what I did during the great pandemic of the 2020s, I will tell them I participated in idolatry so egregious that the Golden Calf would’ve blushed a dusky shade of metallic rose. Every ...14 hours ago
Sports journalist Jim Kayes was a weekend host for the canned Radio Sport channel - and reckons its demise and cuts to sports reporting nationally can in part be put down to snobbery and neglect. It was never my plan to cover sport but a busted knee saw it happen. ...15 hours ago
With broader testing criteria coming into place, the Government is expecting to discover more Covid-19 cases within the community, Marc Daalder reports The Ministry of Health admitted on Wednesday afternoon that it was likely missing cases of Covid-19 spreading within the community because testing criteria were too narrow. "We still ...16 hours ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. There were 61 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today, up from the previous day's 58 new cases. Details of how many tests have been completed are now being ...16 hours ago
The Minister for Infrastructure Shane Jones, says building new roads could help address the looming unemployment crisis. ...17 hours ago
More questions were fired at top government officials in the second Epidemic Response Committee meeting. ...17 hours ago
A non-profit group is signing up qualified health professionals - retired, out of the workforce or part-time - to join a kind-of Home Guard to fill areas of need in the health system during the pandemic. As we enter week two of the Level 4 Covid-19 alert, we need to preserve ...17 hours ago
Tim Pankhurst, chief executive of Seafood NZ and former leading newspaper editor, retires this week after 48 years in the workforce. He looks back on a final week like no other. A week ago before the world changed we were fishing at dawn on the shore of the Rangaunu Harbour ...17 hours ago
MPs and economists are calling for greater transparency on the use of welfare and business subsidies, as the Finance Minister outlines the economic challenge ahead for New Zealand. The financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is set to be markedly worse for New Zealand than that from the global financial ...17 hours ago
As millions of Kiwis stay home, power companies say Covid-19 hasn't factored into their annual power price changes, the majority of which kick in on April 1. ...18 hours ago
Across the United States the concert halls and theatres are silent. Broadway has shut down. The mighty 3800-seat Metropolitan Opera House is in lock-down. Actors, opera stars and choruses, musicians are on furlough if they are lucky. But the best shows in town remain: the midday news conference by News ...19 hours ago
The National Party leader Simon Bridges, says quarantine and more testing are needed to eliminate Covid-19. ...21 hours ago
Some people compare our SAS heroes to
the US Navy SEAL teams. They could be right….
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/10/the-crimes-of-seal-team-6/
In reference to our SAS, and the ‘botched’ raid, why not have an enquiry?
Where is the political downside?
How does it go.. nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
The crafty Defence Force has waited five days to respond and then turn around and say it was the wrong village. How’s their fact checking, seeing they lost the ‘report’?
Did they wait five days because Parliament was sitting last week and not sitting this week?
Their fact checking is flawless. This story will be dead in a week.
Yeah so flawless they lost the report, some said this story would be dead by the end of last week, and yet it is still going.
An independent investigation would clear up the matter, but the outgoing PM is against that… ask yourself why?
This story is not going away. If it is not dealt with in the form of a fully independent inquiry, it will leave a stain on the reputation of our military and NZ as a whole.
Right now the NZDF and Government are trying to back pedal to a point where they can save some face. To me it is too late for that. They had 7 years to front foot it properly.
I liked Marianne Elliott on Q+A in the weekend in answer to the accusation that Hit and Run was politically motivated… that what we are dealing with here is a political cover up.
I’m still furious about Key’s final speech. What a lot of ghost-written bollocks ! There are many current horror stories out there of working conditions and parents sacrificing themselves for their kids including tangata whenua, polynesian, hindu, chinese, philipino, tamil among others, reflecting increasing complexity in Aotearoa. Parliament needs to reflect *them*, not just the chattering classes.
“Their fact checking is flawless.”
Seems it was their “fact checking” that was the problem.
Citation required.
The fact that their story keeps changing, for one thing.
Read the book!
He means the fact that there weren’t any insurgents in the village they attacked. Quite a failure of ‘fact checking’ that one.
Srylands is just reflexively supporting established power again. That’s what the authoritarian right does
War crimes trial required.
The sea is bumpy
“The Māori Party has spearheaded a new bill proposing major changes to the governance and administration of the 27,000 titles of Māori land in New Zealand, which equate to 6 percent of the country’s total land mass.
But its new ally, Mana Party leader Hone Harawira has called the Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill “a poisonous and destructive cancer”.”
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/327525/mana-attacks-maori-party-over-'poisonous'-land-bill
Disapointing comments by Winston. We have one of the highest child abuse and the highest domestic violence abuse… so lets not go backwards…
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/03/winston-peters-a-dangerous-old-man-sue-bradford.html
I guess wisdom comes with age. I experienced [suffered] both sensible and stupid corporal punishment in my youth and it is obvious to me it is a serious lack in the dragging up of children today as evidenced by the events which caused Winston to speak out for the return of discipline.
But sadly the biggest problem is the pre-dominence of female teachers who are incapable and prefer to deprive children of education rather than a little bit of discipline to show the children what is right and what is wrong in a way to be remembered.
jcuknz….. pleeeze female teachers are to blame…. maybe the sensible and stupid corporal punishment in your youth did some serious damage to your future intellectual state….
I suggest you retire to the study, Giles. Your dear wife will be along shortly with your pipe and slippers.
Sue Bradford calling out the Greens and by extension Labour for being neo liberal sacks of shit, and having the type of back bone sacks like that need…
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201838072/what-price-power-former-green-mp-sue-bradford-slams-greens'-deal-with-labour
Not holding back, was she?
And she’s right. There is no way to be (so-called) fiscally responsible and also be socially responsible. The thing that really gets me about so-called fiscal responsibility is that it’s highly irresponsible – people suffer and people die when ledgers are held up as more important than people.
I actually think that the ‘business plan’ Gareth Morgan has tabled through TOPs has more to offer struggling people and does more to address imbalances of wealth than anything this straight jacket Labour and the Greens want the country to don can ever achieve.
Anyway. It’s looking like mana for me. And if that turns out to be a wasted vote, then hey. (I simply won’t vote in favour of getting a kicking)
Where have Labour or the Greens said that the ledger is more important than people? Shaw was pretty clear that it was the other way round.
“There is no way to be (so-called) fiscally responsible and also be socially responsible.”
So people said the other day and when I asked for an explanation of that what I got was lines of ideology. The framing of one vs the other and never the twain shall meet looks like a political stance rather than an absolute truth.
There was an entire post done just the other day that laid out their ‘fiscally responsible’ position. Y’know? All that b/s around debt being held to 20% of GDP etc?
I’m at a loss to understand what it is you’re not grasping. There are only two ways governments raise monies to spend on social programmes.
One way is through taxation. The other is through borrowing.
Obviously, if debt is being paid down then there’s no borrowing or only very limited borrowing. Meanwhile, revenue from taxation that’s paying down debt isn’t going to social spending.
In a situation where an economy has slowed, that diversion of a lower tax take to pay down debt is disastrous – it’s a liberal economic prescription that both Labour and the Greens have pledged to adhere to and it’s otherwise known as austerity.
The non-liberal prescription (the responsible avenue) is to borrow and supplement any tax take and then allocate the monies for various social expenditures. And only pay down debt when the debt to GDP ratio has naturally fallen as the consequence of increased GDP.
In other words, what Labour and the Greens should be saying is that their government will invest in schools and health and whatever infrastructure and services are required for the general welfare of NZ, and that debt will be only be paid down if and when favourable economic conditions prevail.
Well thanks for finally putting out an alternative positioning. Doesn’t high debt place us at increasing risk internationally?
What you appear to be saying is that if we have unfavourable conditions that on the basis of this policy the Greens would throw social services under a bus. I just don’t see the evidence for that (and I’m pretty sure Matthew addressed this issue in the last round).
The Greens are in favour of increasing govt income via taxation btw.
In answer to your first question, no.
On the second point, if monies are being used to pay down debt, then that can only come at the expense of social spending. Yes, given less money, health could be prioritised over roads. But regardless of what you may think of roads, the fact remains that less money is being spent into society in favour of giving that money over to debt repayment.
Increasing taxation when debt servicing is taking priority doesn’t really do much. If an economy is shrinking then the debt/GDP ration tends to climb no matter how much money is being raised to be thrown at the debt.
Just listened and what I heard Bradford saying is that the Greens have sold out… because. She doesn’t actually explain other than to say that business support the policy and that the policy will explicitly mean no social spending, but she doesn’t say how or why. She also says that they (both parties I guess) haven’t made any policy announcements regarding social spending, which I find quite extraordinary given that for the last couple of years the Greens have spoken and acted on this repeatedly.
At the end she gets a bit better where she makes a comparison with Labour in the 2000s and how they tinkered around the edges with social policy. And I agree there is a danger here for that to happen again, which is why we need the ratio of L to G MPs to be as even as possible so that the Greens have the power to push the govt left. It would be way better if we looked at what Clark’s govt did and compare it to what L/G now are intending and see what is similar and what is different. At the moment I’m just seeing a lot of reaction with little analysis.
I understand where Bradford is coming from. She didn’t get the opportunity to elaborate. But she is saying the economic agreement signals no change from how the Labour Party operated in 2000-2007: ie tinkering around the edges, and delivering a situation where the Nats, once in power again, can shift things even further rightwards.
Bradford particularly pointed out the way the latest Labour-Green agreement aims to get business onside as a priority, rather than address the pressing issues for the struggling Kiwis they should be supporting as a priority.
Also see Stephanie Rodgers on the agreement:
I think Bradford’s RNZ interview opens the way for the logic of a new left wing party. That may be where her thinking is headed. She tried Mana, so what else is there?
I agree with both Sue and Stephanie’s analysis but the answer is not another left-wing party – the answer is to try and influence the leftish parties we have. You don’t have to join them to do that – you can lobby relentlessly with well researched material directed at any of the MPs who may be sympathetic.
It takes too long to get a party to the stage where it can have a significant political role – Mana tried but IMO made a fatal error getting involved with Kim Dotcom and lost the momentum it had. A huge amount of energy went into Mana and it is hard to keep up the support from volunteers without any sign that they are getting anywhere.
Agree, Karen. But I think that’s maybe where Bradford’s thinking is going. Although, she also does a very good job of holding Labour & the Greens to account.
which is why we need the ratio of L to G MPs to be as even as possible so that the Greens have the power to push the govt left
But the Greens have just signed up to this notion of having debt sit at no more than 20% of GDP. You can’t really get any more non- left than that. (I mean, sure, yo could go for 10% or 5% – but the whole point is that the focus they’re applying to debt is absolutely a right wing focus – liberal)
Even if that were true (and that’s not quite how it was framed in the document), they’re still to the left of every other party in parliament. And that one aspect of what the Greens are doing doesn’t shift their whole kaupapa and policy platform to the right of centre. So having maximum MPs in parliament will give them more chance of moving Labour in the direction of Green Party policy (by all means try and make the argument that GP policy is largely right wing).
I’m not sure what you expect given that Labour are going to run a neoliberal govt albeit a centre left one. Seriously, since the announcement was made I’ve yet to see a credible alternative presented (haven’t read the CTU one yet). Stephanie had a go by saying that they should have focussed on people not finances, but it still doesn’t address the issue of needing the business community on board to govern, and needing to present as credible to get that chunk of the electorate who vote on credibility over the cluster fuck that has been Labour for the past decade.
On climate change alone that’s critical, because the only other option is a 4th term NACT govt. Bradford obviously thinks that being liked by the business community is the end of the world. I think it’s just a natural consequence of lefties not voting Green while they were still radical and the Greens now positioning themselves where they can do the most good within the limitations they’re presented with. Personally I think it’s a piece of leftie bullshit to condemn them on this, because they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
The Greens don’t sit neatly into the left/right box you want to frame them in. They’ll use the tools available to them, but I’m guessing you are looking at the policy within a conventional political framework as well as not looking at it within the broader actions of the Greens.
I’ve yet to see a credible alternative presented
It’s been stated, alluded to and presented over and over again. Focus on necessary social investment. Borrow to fund that if necessary.
Debt levels do not matter. They really don’t. All this nonsense about a need to pay it down is absolute ideological tosh that, if followed through on, inflicts huge amounts of damage on society and people.
Recent and less recent history is awash with ugly real world examples of what happens when debt repayment takes precedence over social investment.
Even if that were true (and that’s not quite how it was framed in the document), they’re still to the left of every other party in parliament.
No they are not.
And that one aspect of what the Greens are doing doesn’t shift their whole kaupapa and policy platform to the right of centre.
Yes it does.
So having maximum MPs in parliament will give them more chance of moving Labour in the direction of Green Party policy (by all means try and make the argument that GP policy is largely right wing).
All their policies are beholden to or limited by their economic positioning. And that’s unabashedly liberal – something they just ‘officially’ signed up to and crowed about the other day.
I’m not sure what you expect given that Labour are going to run a neoliberal govt albeit a centre left one. Seriously, since the announcement was made I’ve yet to see a credible alternative presented (haven’t read the CTU one yet).
See the other reply I made.
Stephanie had a go by saying that they should have focussed on people not finances, but it still doesn’t address the issue of needing the business community on board to govern, and needing to present as credible to get that chunk of the electorate who vote on credibility over the cluster fuck that has been Labour for the past decade.
If the belief is that business being on board is more important than people being on board, then they’re lost (and will hopefully sink without a trace soon)
On climate change alone that’s critical, because the only other option is a 4th term NACT govt. Bradford obviously thinks that being liked by the business community is the end of the world. I think it’s just a natural consequence of lefties not voting Green while they were still radical and the Greens now positioning themselves where they can do the most good within the limitations they’re presented with. Personally I think it’s a piece of leftie bullshit to condemn them on this, because they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Some might view your loyalty to ‘the party’ as noble. But blaming voters for a political party’s shortcomings isn’t flash. Neither is any attempt to play some minor fear card (Nat term no. 4) , because that’s usually a precursor to some ultimatum on the need to ‘vote for the lesser evil’ or you’re a part of the problem nonsense.
The Greens don’t sit neatly into the left/right box you want to frame them in. They’ll use the tools available to them, but I’m guessing you are looking at the policy within a conventional political framework as well as not looking at it within the broader actions of the Greens.
Left and right are economic concepts. The Greens have announced they will adhere to right wing (liberal) economic demands.
Strong sue indeed. I, like her, feel like I am lost on who to vote for this year.
She needs to come back to parliament. Can she and the Greens make up for the greater good of our country?
I agree with Sue Bradford with the anti smacking laws, but not on her opinions on the Greens MoU with Labour. The greens should push Labour centre left which is where Labour need to be (but in the right areas).
I’d also like to see Mana get through. That’s MMP, just as we have the far right ideology from National and ACT we need to have some balance from the far left. What is missing in NZ debate is fresh ideas and how to deal with 21st century issues especially globalism.
A case in point in the article below. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/327526/firms-look-at-cruise-ship-option-for-akl-rail-link-workers
A Chinese bidder for the rail link is proposing to possibly house 1000’s of workers in a cruise ship. Previously, infrastructure projects paid for by NZ tax payers would be good, creating local jobs and opportunities, nowadays, infrastructure projects seem to do the opposite with cheaper workers from overseas being bought in to ‘work’, quality questionable (trains full of asbestos), housing and rents escalating with the amount of ‘new’ workers flooding in, more transport issues from the ‘new’ workers and their families seem to be coming too, and their health, education needs being met by local taxpayers and often bankrupting local businesses with the noise and disruption caused by the 6 years of construction around them.
At the end of the day most of the profits from the infrastructure project go off shore to the parent company. NZ gets little from it and most local people are worse off. Then they ask the local people still employed to stump up more taxes to pay for it all these important infrastructure projects.
My concerns about Labour and Greens is that are still in denial about the actual real effects on local people under globalism and they still think about it in terms of 20th century globalism. Going rah rah to globalism in the 21st century seems akin to forcing inequality on the local community.
Personally I think the Chinese would be amenable for these concerns because they look to the long term relationship, not the short term like the Natz.
Another term of the Natz will be the death for anybody renting, Maori, the environment and hollowing out the middle class further and escalating housing, transport, immigration scams and pollution crisis.
Politicians need to look around them at the US, UK and what normal people are telling them – the messages that are resonating – because people want free borders and selected immigration, but not some free for all that turns their day to day life into a noise, pollution filled, insecure work, struggle. Politicians need to rethink globalism and do proper accounting both financially and socially – before it leads to more climate change and societal disruption.
Their obligation should be to their own citizens not global opportunities for the .1% and an ideology that works like a Ponzi scheme.
They also need to factor in, those local people become more desperate, or who have never had a proper job and now can’t even access welfare. The government war on P for example is a joke!
We wouldn’t need to be building more prisons and having more police, if society starts to give young people a decent upbringing (not a massive percentage living below the poverty line) and a real job to go to at the end of it!
And I’m not talking about a minimum waged job on zero hour contracts.
And angry violent parents who are regularly using ‘reasonable force’ to beat their kids is not going to turn these kids around, quite the opposite.
Lowering the NZ qualification standards – now some of the graduates don’t even know what subjects were in course they were on after “graduating”..
Soon the ‘NZ’ brand will be worthless under the Natz… worthless for educational quality, worthless for clean/green worthless for safety
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/327479/indian-graduates-had-'poor-knowledge'-of-courses
The sign on the kid’s bike – sell your villas, build roads
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C73UcvBW4AEzJPi.jpg
Many people were detained today. This is understandable – thieves are so protective of themselves. But all those who can not be detained against corruption. We are millions.
Alexey Navalny
Images.
On March 26, an anti-corruption action took place across Russia, the reason for which was the investigation of the Anti-Corruption Foundation about Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. On the streets were thousands of people (and in Moscow, apparently, more than ten thousand); Hundreds of them were detained by the police (the majority – again, in Moscow). One of the main features of today’s rallies is how massively they turned out in the regions. “Medusa” shows how anti-corruption actions looked in Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, Kirov, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk – and in many other cities.
google translate
https://meduza.io/feature/2017/03/27/ot-peterburga-do-vladivostoka-vserossiyskaya-aktsiya-protesta-v-fotografiyah
well this should be interesting , quite a few votes in this for NZF
http://community.scoop.co.nz/2017/03/nz-first-repeal-of-anti-smacking-law-welcomed/
Yep still an underbelly of violence in our society. Weak selfish people who are still scared to deal with their own stuff so instead they take it out on children – yuck.
I dont quite understand the point of that marty.
Are you perhaps suggesting that those who think the anti smacking legislation was bad lawmaking that has not reduced violence against kids, are somhow engaging in or promoting violence against kids?
Certainly that was a strong campaign theme at the time that was harmful and improper then as it would be now.
If someone is a pro smacker and wants the law reversed then imo that is evidence that there is stuff that need to work on in a personal way and they should be given the resources and education to work through that stuff rather than smacking.
what about someone who is “anti smacker” and wants the law changed?
I think you are trying to deny the existence of these people!
my point is that Winston believes they exist and some of them will vote NZF for no other reason then to say “we exist”
Wants the law changed to… what?
very good question !
i guess to something that
1 reduces violence against kids
2 does not make policepersons judges
No, I’m literally trying to think of a permutation where someone can be “anti smacking” while supporting a repeal of the anti-smacking law.
Seeking to amend it, maybe by adjusting the police discretion, yeah, sure. But repealing it? How is that consistent with being “anti smacking”?
Ok I mispoke….i meant to say
people who are anti smacking and did not want the law passed and would like to see it repealed.
we exist !
because its a badly formed law passed by coercive process (coercion is violence too)
So you’re against smacking, you just want it to be legal?
An anti smacker wants the law changed? Tighter do you mean, less loopholes for the loopholes?
I’d need to see some strong independent evidence if someone was going to suggest the legislation caused MORE violence against children.
There was and is no ‘anti-smacking’ legislation. There was legislation that removed the defence that was used by some charged with physical assaults on children.
absolutely correct Bill
this is what we are discussing
New section 59 substituted
Section 59 is repealed and the following section substituted:
“59 Parental control
“(1) Every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent of the child is justified in using force if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances and is for the purpose of—
“(a) preventing or minimising harm to the child or another person; or
“(b) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence; or
“(c) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour; or
“(d) performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.
“(2) Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.
“(3) Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).
“(4) To avoid doubt, it is affirmed that the Police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against a parent of a child or person in the place of a parent of a child in relation to an offence involving the use of force against a child, where the offence is considered to be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution.”
looking at this my opinion is
1 the whole thing has been horribly misrepresented (by parties for and against!) and winston is poised to take advantage of that
2 section 4 is just wrong!
Here’s the main bit of the previous version:
Repealing the act that repealed the above legalises smacking.
“There was and is no ‘anti-smacking’ legislation”
That is why I say people who even use the term anti-smacking just like violence against children. The promote it by the use of the term, and want to perpetuate it by deliberate misleading the public, and debasing the debate.
It is a argument by some people who have no power, and get their jollies by beating up little children. I really do wish we lived in a society that was beyond that sort of thing.
But it would appear, that the child beaters want another round of us reminding them that they are, the scum of the earth.
“There was legislation that removed the defence that was used by some charged with physical assaults on children.”
that is also my recall that this was prompted by a series of cases where sec 59 was sucessfully used as a defense where children surffered injury.
1 I have a very dim view of lawmakers and laws that are a response to specific cases
2 at the time it was also suggested that sec 59 could have been altered somehow thus
“nothing in sec 1 shall be a defense where physical or mental harm is caused to a child.” Not proposing that as “the solution” just suggesting that that was maby not sufficiently explored.
But to get back to my first post, It looks like Winston is positioning NZF to collect on the flustercluck that was the passing of this amendment and perhaps continuing to deligitimise , misrepresent , and demonise those who hold a different view on it might not serve “the left” here.
Oh and just to be completely clear I am personally opposed to any form of violence as a “correction” , which includes much of what happens in our “corrections” services!
The legislation works – winnie is an idiot.
You just made winnie very happy there marty
How long can our high waged Auckland economy continue to be able to pay these prices for 366m2 sections ?? Yes $815k starting from !!! Or a 425m2 for $869k
http://www.realestate.co.nz/3039262
http://www.realestate.co.nz/3039270
http://www.realestate.co.nz/3028664
And No I am not a realestate agent using this has a means of target marketing my properties to all you wealthy land owners at The Std.
Hate to be The Govt if cards should tumble, and there are signs of tremors being felt in Jafaland.
Send troops in to shoot people. People, including civilians, will be shot.
That is what they do!
The term “collateral damage” was not invented for fun.
Oh are you suggesting this as a solution to the question Herodotus askes above?
Note the comment number. Reply to the OP.
If you send troops in to have a war, or aircraft to bomb a country, innocent people will get shot. I include most soldiers in this also.
Most are not volunteers!
The solution is to stop bombing countries just because you cannot drill their oil for free!
In other words, if you don’t like refugees, stop voting for Governments, including ours, that want to shoot and bomb the crap out of, their countries.
User pays, spreads to the military as they buy their own boots
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11825410
I was buying my own kit back in 90’s, hell we had to buy cam nets for our V8 Landrovers and even had to make our gun mounts for the GPMG’s / LSW C9’s so its not new.
If we want spare parts for the V8 Landrovers we went to the wreckers yard on Blenheim Rd in CHCH as it was quicker than ordering thru the system.
Ah, the joys of living in the 90’s not.
Were you reimbursed at all? Because if my employer expected me to fork out for the equipment I use for my job, I’d be presenting him with a bundle of receipts.
Nope, we were joking about it at reunion last Apr in Dunedin when some wag produced a couple of receipts (Doyles Ex Army Supplies in Manchester St I think) and I think we would’ve been wasting our time anyway. Things got real bad when OP Raidan kick off, but’s another story.
In Oz I can claim any kit that I buy back on tax, but I must admit my Macpac Bivi bag I brought back mids 90’s CHCH is still going strong after all years before Macpac move manufacturing overseas in the late 90s. Can’t knock NZ made goods when you can get it.
Agree. If we are going to order soldiers into harms way, then they should have the best gear possible.
However I do not think we should be ordering them to protect US corporate profits.
“If we are going to order soldiers into harms way, then they should have the best gear possible.”
We are always lending/ loaning the NZDF some of our kit for deployments or even for a bog standard exercise here in Oz either because NZDF has short fall in their SOE, don’t have the equipment full stop or they had to leave it behind as the Aircraft maxed out due to weight issues and hope catches up with on the next flight whenever that might be. Mind you when we come to NZ they loan us their cold weather gear as we don’t get that white stuff called snow in 95% of our training areas here in Oz.
Why does Winston want a referendum? We had one with an overwhelming result.
More money wasted on ‘consultation’ when the ‘people’ have spoken against the stupid law.
What referendum against what law has the people spoken?
Radio NZ just reported that 44% of properties in Auckland were bought by investors in February.
So with that in mind. Apart from TOPs, is anyone else even thinking about shifting tax away from income and on to wealth?
The Greens want a capital gains tax, generally but also specifically to address that aspect of the Ak housing crisis. They also want to reduce income tax by using a carbon tax to pay for government spending (can’t remember how that exactly works, you can look it up).
A capital gains tax is not the answer often their are so many ways for rich people to avoid it. If they really want to tax property they need something that is unrelated to a person’s income tax – more like a stamp duty which is pretty difficult to avoid not matter how rich you are.
A person that invests millions in property in NZ, does not live here and just never sells would not pay any tax under the capital gains model and that is increasingly what NZ is going to look like with offshore corporates taking over the rental supply. Let alone pretending to live there to avoid it etc etc.
UK has capital gains taxes, stamp duty, 17.5 VAT and still a massive housing shortage.
In fact the UK have every tax under the sun apart from a financial transaction tax.
They subscribe to the foreign investment model of anybody in the world being able to purchase a property in the UK.
Capital gains is 20th century thinking. They need to switch it up to what is really going on under globalism and why inequality is increasing.
Maybe a shift from taxing income from labour to taxing income from capital? Purely taxing wealth you need to be careful about people who are income poor but have wealth due to stupidly inflated asset values such as housing.
In any case I despair at the way TOP have stupidly discredited the whole idea by wanting to tax people on the value of their own family home, not just their ‘investment’ properties. Only an ex-neoliberal purist like Morgan could do something so unappealing to the public. (It makes me think he may not be so ‘ex’ after all)
The tax on the home (that he sees as an investment) would be a given percentage of something like 5% of its value with an initial value exempt from the tax altogether. And (the claim is) that cost would be more than off-set for the vast majority by a concomitant cut in income tax…and phased in over time so people can adjust their circumstances accordingly.
Now, I don’t think it’s perfect and I agree it might result in a few unfair cases coming to light (big house and no income). But then, what we have now is diabolically unfair to swathes of people who have no room for maneuver.
The family home cannot be excluded.
That just makes for a loophole that wealthy people can drive a bus through.
Ordinary home owners will be better off with TOP’s policy as the housing taxes will be offset by income tax/GST decreases.
To Bearded Git: In your comments when using the term investor, you are including/excluding which groups? eg. people on a visa permit, overseas students, etc
Heres the reference for you Johan
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/90861306/house-investors-hit-record-in-auckland-first-home-buyers-fall-corelogic
class war encouraged by 30 years of rogernomics and tax breaks for the rich.
landlords (not all but many) have been shitting on the poor for ever
Shamubeel Eaqub: Has anything changed for Generation Rent?
A doctor writes about how our shitty houses are killing us
and more
http://thespinoff.co.nz/media/26-03-2017/the-very-best-of-rent-week-on-the-spinoff/
Key’s last speech was a pathetic sob story, which could have been bettered by any number of recent migrant groups.
Huh? Haven’t caught up with the fact Micheal Wood is the MP for Mt. Roskill.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11826058
Toys for thugs.
soylent green anyone 🙂
Closer than you imagine.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/rob-rhinehart-no-longer-requires-food
https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/life-after-food-soylent-motherboard/55cb6ae51ce00c683baee7a9
Terrorism – Not if your white.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/24/1646760/-If-the-terrorist-is-white-then-it-s-alright-Trump-tweets-about-London-victim-not-black-New-Yorker
“Salisbury School, near Nelson, intends to return to court if Education Minister Hekia Parata tries again to close its doors.
If it goes ahead, it will be the second time the minister has faced Salisbury-related legal action. Parata first attempted to close the school in 2012 but lost in the High Court.”
Rock on Salisbury School 😀 Proud of you all.
Salisbury would like parents and educationalists from across New Zealand to come forward with any stories of trying but failing to get a student into the IWS.
People are asked to email principal@salisbury.school.nz with their situation and contact details.
The baby boomer mafia and winston peters have really sunk to a new low.
Apparently because I was never given the bash by my parents i should be out robbing dairys because anyone who doesnt get hidings is a sociopath.
Mental!
Just like how banning begging gets rid of poverty and kicking people off of benifits doesn’t increase homeless.
The cradle to the grave generation who pulled the ladder up on every forth coming generation so we couldn’t receive the help they did. … this generation. …
They say we need to raise the pension age but not till they are all dead….
Ya own all the homes, never had to havea student loan and now you want us to work an extra two years but not you….
Oooh wouldn’t they be in for a shock once us millennials realized what a con they’ve played on us.
We have some of the lowest elderly poverty in the oecd world and highest childhood poverty. Mental.
Hard to find any common ground witj a generation that thinks greed is good and that everyone needs to harden up and wants to bash the kids.
Paul has a guest post on the Daily Blog today. He is introduced as the bloke who was banned from the Standard for three years for suggesting that left, liberals and progressives should work together to change the government. This is not how I recall it at all. I thought it was more to do with misrepresenting an author. Probably won’t bother going there for a while.
lol
I have a friend who spent some time talking about how happy they were after their breakup, not bovvered at all, yet somehow what the ex was doing always managed to sneak back into the discussion. That somehow seems relevant 🙂
*they’re better now, I’m pleased to report. It’s a process.
a very good post it was too, reccomended reading.
Pity him or Bradbury had to lie about ts then, although the irony of the lie is pretty funny.
Just got an email from the greens relating to donating.
The scary stuff was that just renting a prime bill board now costs $1,200, per month!
First Key didn’t want us to be tenants in our own country.
Now many can’t afford to be tenants in our own country.
Now it seems like people can’t even afford to rent a billboard in our own country!
Meanwhile Bill English is fine with some people stealing water from our own country.
WTF????
Who are Concept Consultants?
I am seriously annoyed with them, they are the enemy of New Zealanders,
this is their third hit on renewable energy , They are dishonest spindoctor scum
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201838077/report-electricity-technology-will-harm-the-poor
It will be odd for those who get serious about fully insulating their homes in order to conserve energy, and install solar water heating. Their drop in electricity use will be penalised by having to pay much more for electricity. So the best action for Electricity Suppliers is for us to use heaps of power, leave the windows open, tear out insulation, have long showers and pay huge power bills.
Of course the more people who use solar energy the longer the power delivery system would have before paying for upgrades. Surely?
But this is the free market mate, its more efficient this way /sarc
I think that its the owners (overseas fund managers) of our transmission network protecting their (not ours) investment. but hey we need investment. dont we?
> I think that its the owners (overseas fund managers) of our transmission network protecting their (not ours) investment
Nope
antoine go to their website and look at the bio,s of these people. They got us into this mess in the first place. We have a revolvind door industry executivepolicy advisors situation here. what they are doing is immoral and anti democratic. Their “reports” are not intended to inform at all but to influence policy for their personal and sector profit.
Hmm
I went to the website and had a look at them
Which one do you think is the most dodgy?
> So the best action for Electricity Suppliers is for us to use heaps of power
That’s right, you can’t expect an old style electricity supplier to encourage you to use less power (Although some of them actally do)
> Of course the more people who use solar energy the longer the power delivery system would have before paying for upgrades. Surely?
No, solar on its own won’t delay upgrades to the power network, because the sun doesnt shine at the times when we need power most. Solar + battery is another matter.
A.
I love how they’ve mastered the art of feigning concern for the poor. “This new electricity technology will harm poor people… the very same people we don’t give a toss about for 364 days of the year, but today, and because we’re being paid a lot of money, please join us in doing a terrible job of pretending to feel sympathy for the less fortunate. Thank you.”
Yep the poor people that are being gauged with line costs in rural areas.
Oh yeah, the poor people that run on glow bug.
oh yeah, the poor people that simply gave up on electricity and cook on a barbie and have candles.
They are these guys, http://www.concept.co.nz/.
I had a look at it. No, it’s not a hit on renewable energy. It’s pointing out some problems with the way electricity is priced. For instance, if someone had an electric car, there’s not enough incentive for them to charge it overnight (as opposed to evening when the demand for power is highest).
A.
Canada to legalise cannabis.
Aside from a couple of times in uni I’ve never touched the stuff but this is eminently sensible. I really do think NZ should follow suit.
in my new home, we had a holiday home rented by out of townees for a week.
the first night they were at said property they started a fire, at 4.30 am the alarm goes of, and Mr. Voluntary Firefighter drives of screeching tires into the night.
Several hours later he comes back with the news that hey could not save the house, but managed to save the property next door, that there is a report of two people missing and they were hoping that ones it was save to go into the wreck they would not find these two guys and their dogs. – they did not in the end to the relieve of everyone.
Figures the fire was lit deliberately, the guys were cooking meth, somehow a fire started and they could not stop it (fire extinguisher near by the initial burn site), so they started a fire in each room and ran away.
Two days later a big headline in the local rural paper….Coppers found a dozen of marijuana plants and took them off the market ohmygosh the war on certain drugs is working. !!!!!!!!!!
Priorities. We surely have them.